The Romneys Lack Compassion for Women in Poverty

I don’t think Mitt Romney thinks much of women. He has outdated views of our bodies, our minds, our capabilities, and our voices. His proposed policies will drive an even larger wedge between the haves and have-nots in our country, with an especially hard blow to mothers, who face unique dynamics as citizens who earn less than men, grapple with working outside the home versus staying home to raise children, living in poverty, and depending on assistance while struggling as working poor. It’s as if Mitt Romney wants to make Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale come to life. Haven’t read it? You will see it’s horrifyingly closer to home than the sci-fi dystopian novel it was set out to be when it was published in 1985. Mitt Romney has been tripping over his words for some time now. It’s not that he’s inarticulate; he’s woefully out of touch.

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"I'm not concerned about the very poor, there is a safety net there." - His crass, icy disregard for families living in poverty in this country is inexcusable. Such a severe lack of empathy is a character flaw I don’t want in my neighbor, much less my president.

“Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance, people—we—if someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.” - Um, so the emergency room counts as a reasonable solution to treat the uninsured and underinsured? Does this great Bain financial mind not understand what ER visits cost to the healthcare system annually?

“... who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it -- that that's an entitlement ...” - Wow, so families that are trying to provide food, housing, and care to their children are nothing but mooches in the scheme of things.

The blithe manner in which he disregards about half the nation is disgusting on many levels. For starters, it’s a tacky, insensitive way to pander to his cronies. He’s running for President of the United States -- that means people from all walks of life with their own unique histories, paradigms, experiences, cultures, and socioeconomic barriers and boons. The real Mitt shone through in the notorious 47 percent video.

I’ve been saying for a while now that Romney is fueled by hubris, not service. His comments are laden with a lack of character, compassion, and courage. It’s easy to stroke your gimme supporters; it’s another thing entirely to stand up for the disenfranchised, something Mitt Romney is unwilling to do. I had hopes for his wife to grab him by the collar and shake some estrogen laced sense into him, especially considering that more women are likely to be living in poverty or struggling among the working poor. Sadly, her views are just as out of whack and unfeeling as his.

“We can be poor in spirit, and I don’t even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing. It can be here today and gone tomorrow.” - Says the woman whose husband is richer than the last eight presidents combined in an interview on Fox News.

“I love the fact that there are women out there who don’t have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids. Thank goodness that we value those people too. And sometimes life isn’t easy for any of us.” - Because going to work is such a fun, novel concept. Whee! And there she goes with the skin cringing term “those people” again.

The Romneys would represent our nation as the “haves and have-nots.” Neither Romney shows compassion, and worse, those 47 percent comments might not show disdain as Ann Romney claims, but they demonstrate gross ignorance. And by the way, 8 of the top 10 states with citizens that pay the lowest income tax are Republican-leaning states. Seems like another case of constituents voting against their own best interests.